The UK became the largest equipment leasing market in Europe in 2012, according the annual survey of business volumes from Leaseurope.
Equipment leasing across Europe grew by 0.6%, to 236bn, in 2012, according to Leaseurope’s 2012 Annual survey, with the UK’s leasing sector growing 9.6% to 44.4bn, making it the largest market in Europe, above Germany, whose 1.1% growth left it at 43.2bn.
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When figures for real estate leasing are included, Germany maintains the top spot with 45bn new business compared to the UK’s 44.7bn.
This slight growth across all of Leaseurope’s member states, which has been adjusted for inflation, was largely driven by a 5.7% growth in passenger car leasing.
Despite the anaemic growth on a European level, some countries experienced high growth, most notably in Estonia, which saw new business volumes grow 27.2% to 946m, The Netherlands, up 26.9%, and Sweden, up 16%.
Rising economies Russia and Turkey both experienced strong growth, up 7.1% and 14.1% respectively. However, there were a number of economies that experienced significant declines.
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By GlobalDataWith a 52.6% fall in new business volumes to 121.6m, Greece experienced the sharpest contraction, however Portugal (43.6%) also experienced a notable decline.
Italian equipment leasing companies only wrote 13bn worth of new business, compared to 16.8bn in 2011, meaning new business volumes declined 22% for the fifth largest leasing market in Europe.
The Spanish market shrank 22.9%, from 5.3bn to 4.1bn.
Although less pronounced than in Italy and Spain, the French market also shrank, by 0.3%, to 25.1bn.
The total number of new contracts grew by just 0.4%, a figure heavily affected by severe drops in the number of contracts in Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy which fell by 41%, 38.9%, 20.9% and 16.7% respectively.
Turkey’s 3,558 contracts meant it saw the largest growth, at 104.3%, while the number of contracts in the Ukraine grew by 28%, despite business volumes falling by 16.5% in the same period.
